MP Mission: Operation Dynamo

[TheEnlightenedFlorist]

This is a multiplayer mission that attempts to recreate Operation Dynamo, Englands evacuation of it's troops from France in early 1940. The Luftwaffe tries to destroy ships and ground troops at Dunkirk, the RAF defends Dunkirk. The Luftwaffe are limited to five BF-109E-3s out at a time, while the RAF are limited to five Spitfire Is and Rotol equipped Hurricanes. Other aircraft are unlimited. This can be easily changed in the script file. Also, players are allowed to spawn groups of up to four bombers so they don't have to fly alone.

There are plenty of ships and ground targets to shoot at. They should all respawn after they are destroyed. Except for the ships, they respawn every two hours. AI Hurricanes patrol Dunkirk, AI bombers bomb Dunkirk. Plenty to do.

You can also add missions that will randomly start every ~30 minutes. Just put them in the DEMissions or UKMissions folder accordingly and add the file names to the lists at the top of the script.

Any bugs, suggestions for improvements, etc. please post them here.

Edit: Updated to v1.1. Players can now change seats in aircraft. 110s should no longer spawn in hangers that are too small for them.

Version 2.0: Fixed more bugs, added ground troops at Veurne, made train go back and forth between Dunkirk and Veurne, added vehicles that drive around some of the airfields. Also added UK missions and Stuka raids that target the ships and ground troops at Dunkirk.

Version 2.1: Removed landing craft, fixed more "spawn explosions".

Version 2.2: Added Bf-109E-1, fixed script. Also added server logging when ground objects are destroyed by players.

Airwarfare Link

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by TheEnlightenedFlorist

The Luftwaffe are limited to five BF-109E-3s out at a time, while the RAF are limited to five Spitfire Is and Rotol equipped Hurricanes.

Thank you for sharing and congratulation with the release!

Do you mean that only about 10 people can fly fighters on the server at the same time?

[TheEnlightenedFlorist]

Originally Posted by Ataros

Thank you for sharing and congratulation with the release!

Do you mean that only about 10 people can fly fighters on the server at the same time?

No. There can be an unlimited number of non-Rotol Hurricanes and 110s. Only 109s and Rotol Hurris are limited. I probably should have clarified that. Thank you.

[MadTommy]

Thanks mate, sounds fun... great idea for a mission.

[Seeker]

Thanks, downloading now!

[Ataros]

Just looked through your cs code and it looks great. I wish I could know c# half as good as you do. Sure I have many questions if you do not mind )

We use similar actor destroy code on Repka. It used to have an issue of stopping bomber engines when a player switches to a gunner or navigator position. Did you manage to solve this issue? Does adding this line helps in this respect or it was added for different purposes?

        foreach (AiActor actor in actorMain.Group().GetItems())

Originally Posted by TheEnlightenedFlorist

Also, players are allowed to spawn groups of up to four bombers so they don't have to fly alone.

What happens if a player creates 20 bomber groups in a row one by one? I think they should be destroyed immediately in this case or this can ruin any server. I have seen people creating 20 single Stukas on Repka just for fun. They were destroyed with 5 minutes delay. But with groups different code is probably needed. Just a thought.

        List<Player> bluePlayers = new List<Player>();

        foreach (Player p in GamePlay.gpRemotePlayers())
        {
            if (p.Army() == 2)
                bluePlayers.Add(p);
        }

        GamePlay.gpHUDLogCenter(bluePlayers.ToArray(), msg);

Why do you have to add players to a list first and then print message to the list members. Can you print message directly to array members like in this example (for server log msg)?

	private void serverMessage(string msg)
        {
            Player pl = GamePlay.gpPlayer();
            Player[] players = { pl };
            object[] args = { msg };
            GamePlay.gpLogServer(players, msg, args);
        }

This is not my code and I did not check if this code works but I think it does.

[SEE]

I had really poor FPS over Dunkirk trying to create a single mission campaign for 'Operation Dynamo' and ditched it.

Will MP have the same FPS problems using a full Channel map as it sounds excellent apart from my poor fps over that area of France?

I will certainly give it a try when its available, sounds great!

[TheEnlightenedFlorist]

Originally Posted by Ataros

We use similar actor destroy code on Repka. It used to have an issue of stopping bomber engines when a player switches to a gunner or navigator position. Did you manage to solve this issue?

I was not aware of that issue. My code probably exhibits the same behavior. That code actually answers your second question. It goes through all the aircraft in a group and destroys them.

As for the list and array business, I only want to send the message to blue players, so I need to create an array that contains only the players on blue team. The problem is that I don't know how many blue players there are beforehand and when you create an array you can't resize it. That's where the list comes in. The list can be dynamically resized. When I'm ready to send the message, I can use the ToArray() method of the list to get an array that contains only the blue players.

[TheEnlightenedFlorist]

Originally Posted by SEE

I had really poor FPS over Dunkirk trying to create a single mission campaign for 'Operation Dynamo' and ditched it.

Will MP have the same FPS problems using a full Channel map as it sounds excellent apart from my poor fps over that area of France?

I will certainly give it a try when its available, sounds great!

It runs pretty well on my modest machine. Granted, I have most of the settings turned to low or medium. Dunkirk is a pretty large city. If you normally have performance problems over large cities like Calais, Dunkirk probably won't be any different. I tried to design the map so that a lot of action would take place south of Dunkirk as well as directly over it.

I was hoping that since I see a lot of online missions over Calais, that putting one over Dunkirk wouldn't keep too many people from enjoying it. When did you try making your mission? Maybe a recent patch has helped.

[TheEnlightenedFlorist]

Originally Posted by TheEnlightenedFlorist

I was not aware of that issue. My code probably exhibits the same behavior.

This has now been fixed. I also placed static aircraft in the small hangers so 110s shouldn't spawn in them and blow up. The downloads have been updated.